With the Hammond Sk2, you’ll have the pro rig you’ve always dreamed of, but didn’t have the roadies or van to realize!

For many years, HAMMOND has been asked to make a truly portable double 61 note instrument that didn’t share the gross weight of a Refrigerator. The Sk2 can do it all. HAMMOND Drawbar voices up top, Grand Piano on the bottom-or vice versa. Manual Bass and Organ comp on the bottom, Horn section up top for accents. And yes, you can play the Sk2 as a double manual HAMMOND Organ in the traditional fashion, the Pipe Organ voices, too. Now you’ll have the pro rig you’ve always dreamed of, but didn’t have the roadies or van to realize.

TOUCH RESPONSE PERCUSSIONThe chief feature of the Hammond B-3 upon its release in 1955 was the inclusion of Touch-Response Percussion™ (Perc). This effect added a high "attack" to the Organ tone at either the octave or the twelfth, with a fast note decay. This sound was reminiscent of an xylophone or clave, and became immensely popular, immediately. Perc gave the Organ a bright highlight, and every generation of music has embraced this sound. Controls for the Perc have the classic nomenclature, familiar to anyone who has ever played a Hammond.

On the Sk series, Perc is executed in the Digital realm, allowing a wide range of controls the organists back in the day did not possess. The 1' drawbar muting, characteristic of the Vintage Organs can be defeated, as can the drop in Drawbar volume level that accompanied the engaging of the Percussion voice. You can control the volumes and decay times as well.

KEY CLICKIn order that every key (and pedal) of the Laurens Hammond's Organ could access every Tonewheel as predicated by the Drawbar settings, an electro-mechanical apparatus lurked behind the keyboards, with 9 contacts corresponding to each drawbar for that keyboard and a series of contacts attached to each key. As a key was depressed, the contacts sequentially touched, and the circuits were completed to produce the Organ tone that was registered by the Drawbars.

The very nature of Electric circuitry dictated a click could be heard at the top of each note played when the current-carrying key contacts touched. Laurens Hammond considered that click to be a nuisance, and worked to no avail in order to rid his organ of that imperfection. The jazz players who embraced the Hammond Organ, however, found the click to be a percussive highlight, and wanted nothing to do with its eradication.

To make matters worse, as the Vintage Hammonds aged, the click became more pronounced, and by the Rock and Roll era, the Key Click assumed a role of importance that Laurens Hammond could never imagine. The Sk series allows you to adjust the intensity of the key ON click, and the key OFF click. The timbre of the click may also be adjusted. Mr. Hammond would have greatly approved of the Sk, as you can turn the click all the way off if you desire, creating a Vintage Hammond Organ that could not exist in the physical world.

THE "TONE" CONTROLThe inclusion of this obscure feature demonstrates the commitment to authenticity Hammond has brought to the Sk Series. Inside the Vintage Hammond B-3, on one side of the tube preamp, there was a "Screwdriver Pot" with the engraved legend "Tone". This control was adjusted by the Technician installing the organ in order to tame the treble response in the instance of the organ's installation in a Church or Mortuary, where a more muted organ was desired.

The control was a cocktail of upper Mid and High frequencies (the proportions of which were, until recently, held secret. The "Tone" control was basically a "hi cut" control and only went "down". You could not direct the control to go "up" for "boost". The TONE control is included in the Sk's menu with the added benefit of being able to BOOST the unique blend of frequencies, which adds a nice "edge" to the Sk tone, if desired.

All the Leslie you need...without all the hassle!For both Hammond and Leslie, the golden goal was to produce a Leslie that did not require motor-driven speakers, and the goal has been reached in the Sk series, with the finest Digital Leslie Hammond has ever produced. Now the elusive effect can be had where space and mobility have heretofore denied it.

As an added benefit to being produced in the Digital realm, many aspects of the effect can be adjusted and tailored to ones own taste and requirement. Slow and Fast Rotor speeds, "Ramp Up" and "Ramp Down" speeds, Speaker Size, Amp type, Virtual Mic Placement and other parameters may be combined into "Cabinet" Macros which then may be assigned to any Organ Preset.

In addition, 8 factory Cabinets, comprising the most popular Leslie Models like the 122, 147, 760, Vintage 31-H, and others are available for instant choice. There is even a model of the original PR-40 (Non-Rotating) Hammond Factory Tone Cabinet. A button on the Control Panel allows the bypass of the Digital Leslie circuit and sends the Organ tones directly to the Stereo Outputs.